


whitewater

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [18]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Future Vision, Gen, Steven Universe Future, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21889306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Future vision doesn’t free Garnet from worry. Sometimes, it makes it worse.
Relationships: Garnet & Steven Universe
Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523993
Comments: 15
Kudos: 212





	whitewater

The future is an endless field of rivers, and Garnet floats, mapless, through the delta.

She has encountered this directionless miasma many times before, but it never fails to be unsettling. It is always this way when something serious is in flux. The rivers grow rough, their borders blurred. She can sense unlikely pools between them, but not see them. And while her day-to-day and moment-to-moment predictions are as sharp as ever, she knows that something looms.

She does not share this with the others. There is not enough information to help any of them prepare for what it might be, and besides, not all of these upheavals have been bad. Garnet meeting Rose and Pearl on Earth’s surface had been the first such state of flux, and without that, she would not still be herself now. She knows it is not always something to fear.

Still, though, she feels on edge.

She sorts through the data in the background, calm and collected on the surface. At Little Homeschool she encourages other Gems to view their life in the moment, but to simultaneously stretch for a future they can finally name as their own. She cherishes small victories, like old friends finding a measure of peace in work on the boardwalk, or Gems investigating fusion for friendship instead of battle. All the while she analyzes. Perhaps this interaction, or that, will trigger the potential energy of the state of flux, and her future vision will clear again —

She spends time with Pearl and Amethyst, sometimes a little, sometimes long days together like they used to. She is so proud of them both, and herself as well. She remembers the early days after corruption, when the future seemed so bleak and endless; she remembers the grief of missing Rose, and she thinks of how far they’ve come with a smile. She suspects they will not be the trigger.

She spends less time with Steven than she likes. He worries her, but she cannot say why. He smiles, broad and cheerful as ever, but there is something behind his eyes that makes her pause. Or maybe there isn’t. He has changed so much, so quickly, in the world, the universe, himself. She reminds herself of that day in the woods in the rain when they found her kitten. Perhaps it’s only that she is still viewing him with outdated parameters.

“Steven,” she says one morning. Dawn is still a hint in the sky, red light flowering slowly against the velvet dark. He used to sleep so late. Yet he comes quietly down the stairs in his pajamas, hair and clothing rumpled but his eyes alert.

“Oh hey, Garnet,” he says. His smile flashes, long-practiced. “I was just about to make some breakfast. You want any?”

“Not today,” says Garnet. “Perhaps tomorrow.” She studies him as he starts the water for his coffee. “You went to bed rather late, too.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty busy these days.”

“Steven... you know you can always talk to me.” Ahh, no. She hadn’t meant to put it so baldly, but she’d gotten impatient. The rivers swirl in her mind’s eye.

There is a clatter. Steven drops the spoon he’s been holding, flinging coffee grounds everywhere. She’d seen that in multiple futures. Wrong choice. She sighs.

“Oh, come on,” Steven mutters under his breath, dropping down to his knees and trying to clean the coffee with a paper towel.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s just — that came out of nowhere.” He stands up, tossing the coffee-smeared paper into the trash, and quickly gets more ready. “I’m just hungry, that’s all. Not really in the mood for talking right now. I’m fine.”

“Of course,” says Garnet, shaking her head. She’s lost the moment. He busies himself with breakfast, a dance of smells and sizzles and steel on steel. She watches the blood-red sunrise through the window, the future frantic like whitewater in her mind, and she wonders when he started lying.

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t wait until someone or something makes Steven finally start talking... but I guess it isn’t Garnet, not yet.
> 
> Also I know I keep setting these stories at dawn with Steven drinking worrying amounts of coffee, but that’s just the mood I keep getting from him. The dead of night is for when you know what the problem is and you’re scared of it. Sunrise is for when you keep thinking you can push the problems you haven’t even named away and focus on a brand new day, so that’s where Steven’s sitting for me right now.


End file.
